Nurseries and Baby Gear
StephanieMJarvis
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Nursery on a different floor
StephanieMJarvis
member
Hi! I was just checking in on here to see if there are any mom's who have had their nursery on a different floor. We bought our home a year ago - and we are in the process of talking about having a baby. At the time I didn't think about it - but the layout of our home may not be the best for this. We have a 3 story home, with the 1st floor with an office & guest room, 2nd floor living room, 3rd floor is only the master bedroom and bath. I'd think I'd plan to have the baby in our room at first just until they are sleeping through the night, and then consider having a nursery on the 1st floor and of course have a video baby monitor for night time.
We live in an extremely safe neighborhood, and our house isn't huge (1800 sqft) so we'd of course always have our doors open but I wanted to see anyone elses opinions on this or if anyone has had a similar situation. A lot of my new mom friends have said that they with their bedroom doors closed, they rely on their baby monitors so it's not too big of a difference, plus during the day at nap time i'm only about 5 stairs away from the nursery if I were in the living room. But of course there is a safety issue, so I wanted to see thoughts.
Thank you!
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Re: Nursery on a different floor
I live in Texas and it is very common for most houses to just have the master on the ground floor and all other bedrooms on a second level, if you have a 2 level house. Our nursery is on the second floor and our master is on the ground floor. I really like having the nursery on a different floor because after LO goes to bed, my husband and I can do things in the kitchen, watch TV etc. without worrying about making too much noise that will wake LO. We even had a party in our house over the weekend after LO went to bed and the noise didn't bother him too much.
However, our nursery is used just as a place to sleep. Diaper changes, clothing changes etc. all happen on the ground floor in our bedroom. We have a three drawer plastic container that holds the clothes that LO currently uses in our bedroom. We use a video monitor to watch him after he goes to sleep and we are vigilant about making sure it's plugged in to charge at night and that the sound is on. For the first few months, he slept in our room to make breastfeeding at night easier but we transitioned him to the nursery at 5-6 months once he was down to one night feeding. He only started sleeping through the night at around 18 months.
I think having a nursery on the ground floor is doable but I would be concerned if someone broke in, in the middle of the night since his room is on a lower floor. Of course, with our set up, a burglar could easily walk past our room to the stairs and access the baby room so maybe I am overthinking it.
Do you have an alarm system or a dog for extra safety?
Not sure how I feel about being on a different floor then my LO.
I've been in two more house fires since then, one major and one minor, the major one being in a new construction home. Anyway, it's enough for me to realize that those things do happen, and when they do you don't want to trek across your house to get your baby out. I understand my opinion is colored by my unlikely experiences, but in our house the rule is that until you can get yourself out of the house in an emergency, you sleep close, preferably in the same room as us. DS is 3.5 and sleeps in our room, but if he wanted I wouldn't have a problem with him going to his room since it shares a wall with ours, and he could probably actually open the window and get outside if we showed him how.
When DD first came home she was in a bassinet next to my bed for about a month but after that she slept in the crib and we've never looked back. Planning to do the same when DS is born in a few weeks. We also had the pack-n-play in our living room for daytime and for diaper changes - made life easier.
Oh and I had a c-section which did make the stairs hard for a first few weeks but eventually it was a non-issue.
@AMarie101, we have a first floor master and I really like it. Before we had kids though, we hardly used our second floor. Our master bedroom and bathroom are huge and I don't think we would be able to have as nice a bedroom if it was on the second floor due to lack of space. I also think you spend more time in the master when it's on the ground floor and it's easier to do laundry since our laundry room is on the same floor as the master.
I would think about re-sale value though, if you put your master on the first floor. Where I live, a first floor master is extremely common and houses with a second floor master are not as appealing to buyers. You might face a similar situation if it's not common to have a first floor master.